Amu (U.K Premiere)

Shonali Bose—India—2005—102m—35mm—drama

In English, Bengali, Hindi and Punjabi with English subtitles

AMU begins with the everyday dilemmas of a young Indian-American, Kaju, returning to the "foreignness" of her Indian homeland. Like an approaching thunderstorm, the film gathers a potent political charge as Kaju begins to question her past and realizes how her own privileged life in America was born out of communal violence in India. After Prime Minister Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards in 1984, carnage erupted in the streets of Delhi. More than four thousand Sikhs were killed in three days.

Writer-director Shonali Bose was a student in Delhi during those days. She worked in the relief camps set up after the massacre, writing down the stories of those who survived. Bose brings to the flashback scenes in AMU the intense impact of first-hand experience. AMU is powered by a sense of outrage still felt today. The film makes a strong case that this massacre was not spontaneous but planned, and depicts politicians and police who were involved but went unpunished. Kaju's questions produce difficult answers that force her to face the truth of India's history - and her own. [For more information on this film's Education Screening, please visit our Special Events page.]